1. Field of the Invention
The field of this invention relates to a vending machine and more particularly to a vending machine which is designed to dispense tools.
2. Description of the Related Art
Manufacturers commonly employ machinists. These machinists use tools. Typical tools will be drill bits, saw blades, socket drivers, chisels and the like. There are literally hundreds of different tools that are commonly used by machinists in manufacturing facilities.
In the past, it has been common for these machinists to go to a supply room for such tools and select whatever tool that they wanted and then go ahead and use the tool accordingly. The problem with this type of arrangement is that the tool never gets back to the supply room and actually the ends up probably going home with the machinist to stockpile the machinist's home tool supply.
It has been common within manufacturing plants to overcome this problem by establishing a tool crib. The tool crib is manned by an employee. That employee is required to sign out the tool to the machinist, and if the machinist does not bring back the tool to the tool crib, then the expense of that particular tool will then be charged to the machinist. This will cause the machinist to make sure that the tool gets back to the supply room.
The problem with the tool crib is that it has to be manned by an employee and therefor is inherently expensive. Within recent years, there is known a vending machine for tools which will eliminate the cost of an employee. The machinist will go to the vending machine, program in his or her code, make the selection for the type of tool that he or she wants and then that particular tool will be dispensed to the machinist. When the machinist is finished with the tool, the machinist will bring it back and and then put the tool back into the vending machine at the same location from which the tool was extracted. The vending machine will record what tool has been charged to what individual and keep a record of whether that tool is returned or not. If the tool is not returned, then the expense of the tool can then be charged to the machinist.
However, there is one significant deficiency of the tool vending machine that has been previously constructed. That deficiency is that there is no consideration being given to the size of the tool that is being dispensed. Some tools can be rather large in size while other tools can be quite small in size. The vending machines that have been used in the past utilize a series of carousels. Each carousel is divided into a series of vertically spaced apart trays. Each tray is divided into a series of compartments. In the past, the compartments were all the same size on a particular level of the carousel. It really doesn't make much sense to locate a one-eighth inch diameter and two to three inches in length drill bit in the same size compartment that there may be a one-inch diameter and six to eight inches in length drill bit. The one-eighth inch diameter drill bit occupies only a small space of the compartment where the one-inch diameter drill bit could substantially be almost as long as the compartment is wide.
The vending machine causes movement of the carousel to the area of a door and then the door is opened for the particular selected tool that permits the machinist to gain access to a single compartment. The maximum width of the compartment is generally equal to the maximum width of the door opening so that the machinist can only gain access to that compartment and not to any other directly adjacent compartments. However, if one decides to make the compartment smaller so that smaller tools can be located in the smaller compartment and the same size door opening is utilized, the machinist is able to stick his or her hand into compartments located on each side of the selected compartment and remove tools from those compartments. This, of course, is not desirable.
The usage of smaller compartments is definitely desirable as a single vending machine can be utilized to dispense a greater quantity of tools. A vending machine with smaller compartments can dispense two to three times the tools of a vending machine that only has large compartments. However, the vending machine must be modified so that the door opening can be varied in size to accommodate larger width compartments and also smaller width compartments.